Which countries receive the newest, and best Netflix movies?

Content seems to enter and leave Netflix’s many regional libraries pretty quickly. Due to the complicated nature of licensing agreements, some of the newest titles and older syndicated shows may be on Netflix for a year, while others sit around for several years at a time. American Netflix offers up a few great examples of this. Every Star Trek television series has been available through the American Netflix library for several years now, while HGTV show Flip or Flop, a 2015 program, is already on its way out.

This sometimes fast, sometimes slow movement of content can be good or bad, depending on which country you’re in. As every Netflix region is subject to different licensing agreements, the newest movies may land on Netflix only a few months after leaving the movie theater, while some new TV shows may even run almost concurrently on Netflix, or land right onto different regional libraries almost as soon as each season ends.

Which Regions Get the Newest Titles?

There’s a good chance you’ve asked yourself that question while staring at a seeming overabundance of old movies and TV shows in your Netflix queue. I’m personally going through a re-watch of the 1990s science fiction series Sliders, a show that has been on Netflix since 2007(!). In case you’re wondering, Netflix had under 7 million subscribers in 2007, so it’s safe to say that Sliders is old content. The program has been in the American Netflix library since before Netflix even expanded to any other countries (2010). But Sliders, and many shows like it, are why American Netflix has the largest library in the first place. It’s not necessarily due to new content, but because of old content.

This begs the question: Does American Netflix still get the newest titles?

We investigated which Netflix regions had the most content not too long ago:

As you can see, the USA has the largest library by a small margin. This is followed closely by American Samoa and Puerto Rico, both American territories. It should come as no surprise that the three regions with the most content are the U.S. and U.S. territories. But our research, which at the time was into the regions with the best content, as indicated by IMDb rankings. That research revealed a more complicated picture.

American Netflix and American territories have the most content, but not the best. At least, not in all areas. We actually discovered that American Netflix is the best place to go for hit TV shows, but probably the worst place to go if you’re looking for hit movies. For top-rated films, it was Belgium, Brazil, the UK, Australia and New Zealand that had the best showing, despite the fact that none of these countries even make the top 10 for the most content.

The question persists as to whether or not that remains true when one is looking for the newest titles. To find that out, we turned to a few helpful sources.

Where to Watch New Movies on Netflix

CNBC ran a report in 2015 that showed new movies just aren’t staying in the theaters that long these days. The average movie stays in the theaters for only around 4 weeks, followed by an implicit industry rule of a 90-day window after the movie airs before it hits other mediums like Netflix. That being the case, any movie from 2015 would technically be possible for Netflix to acquire, and any movie from 2016 up to movies that stopped screening sometime in early July.

With that in mind, the following top-ranked new movies from 2015, and some from 2016 are available on Netflix in some fashion:

Film

RT Score

IMDb Score

International Gross

On Netflix US?

INTL Netflix?

Mad Max: Fury Road

97%

8.1

378.4

No

Yes

Inside Out

98%

8.3

857.6

No

Yes

Selma

99%

7.5

66.8

No

Yes

Spotlight

96%

8.1

88.3

Yes

Yes

Star Wars: Episode VII

92%

8.2

2,068

No

Yes

Brooklyn

97%

7.5

62.1

No

Yes

It Follows

97%

6.9

14.7

No

Yes

Shaun the Sheep Movie

99%

7.4

106

No

Yes

The Martian

92%

8

630.2

No

Yes

Room

94%

8.2

35.4

No

No

Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation

93%

7.4

682.3

No

Yes

Creed

94%

7.7

173.6

No

No

Carol

94%

7.3

40.3

No

No

Son of Saul

96%

7.6

1.8

No

Yes

45 Years

97%

7.1

4.2

No

Yes

Paddington

98%

7.2

288.7

No

No

Timbuktu

99%

7.2

1.1

No

Yes

Sicario

94%

7.6

84.9

No

Yes

Spy

94%

7.1

235.7

No

Yes

Mustang

98%

7.7

0.845

Yes

Yes

Zootopia

98%

8.1

1023.6

Yes

Yes

The Jungle Book

95%

7.6

966.2

No

No

The Nice Guys

92%

7.4

36.3

No

No

The Witch

91%

6.7

40.4

No

Yes

Love & Friendship

98%

6.7

14

No

No

Sing Street

97%

8.1

12.2

No

No

Embrace of the Serpent

98%

8

1.3

No

No

Eye in the Sky

95%

7.3

18.7

No

No

Only Yesterday

100%

7.7

18.5

No

No

The Wailing

100%

7.6

0.787

No

No

Weiner

96%

7.7

1.7

No

No

10 Cloverfield Lane

90%

7.3

108.3

No

No

Our Canadian friends can start singing songs of pride and joy (or the national anthem, perhaps?) when it comes to movies. Not only did they dominate on that end, it was a complete and utter blowout. The following graph should help visualize what we mean:

In a previous article, we noted that American Netflix is perhaps one of the worst Netflix regions for top-rated movies. This remains the case for new hit films as well. But Canada’s strong showing for grabbing up new movies was new in our data this time around and hints at something interesting regarding licensing deals there. It perhaps suggests that Netflix has an easier time procuring licensing deals for new release movies in Canada than anywhere else in the world. Whatever is happening in Canada, it’s clearly the place to go if you want the top-rated new release movies.

Where to Watch Top New TV Shows on Netflix

Television programming is a bit different on Netflix. Most new television shows do not run concurrently on Netflix unless they are a Netflix-branded original show. Netflix has pushed heavily on that end, creating a large number of their own branded TV shows with a wide release in most of their territories. They are also working toward having more concurrent programming with other networks, including the new CBS revamp of Star Trek. Most new shows that do end up on Netflix that don’t carry the Netflix logo typically make it there only after the first full season or several seasons have aired. The following top new TV shows from 2015 and 2016 are available on Netflix in some aspect:

TV Show

RT Score

IMDb Score

On Netflix US?

INTL Netflix?

Better Call Saul

97

8.7

No

Yes

Mr. Robot

96

96

No

No

Master of None

100

8.3

No

Yes

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

97

7.9

Yes

Yes

Daredevil

86

8.8

Yes

Yes

Jessica Jones

93

8.3

Yes

Yes

Empire

85

7.8

No

No

Bloodline

63

8.3

Yes

Yes

Catastrophe

100

8.2

No

No

The Jinx

94

8.8

No

No

Supergirl

94

8.8

Yes

Yes

Narcos

84

8.9

Yes

Yes

The Last Man on Earth

7.4

83

No

No

iZombie

8

96

Yes

Yes

Unreal

7.9

92

No

No

Sense8

8.4

67

Yes

Yes

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

7.6

78

No

No

Stranger Things

9

95

Yes

Yes

Our findings here continue with what we found during previous research. The U.S. is still a great place to watch TV shows on Netflix, but so, too, are most other countries. Netflix has pushed hard in the TV show market, in some cases upending the traditional TV and cable networks. As you can see from our list, many of the shows listed are Netflix-branded or Netflix original programs. That they’re also among the top-rated shows that Netflix has hit a bit of a winning stride to help themselves bypass somewhat complicated licensing deals. The only top-rated shows that are not available in the U.S. are Better Call Saul and Master of None. Each of these can be found in most every other region where the other highly-rated shows are also available.

How to Discover New Content on Netflix

You may find a rather large number of websites posting articles with titles such as “Here’s Everything Coming to Netflix in October!” or “Put Your Party Hats On! It’s Ladies Night on Netflix This November!” That’s because Netflix actually posts their upcoming shows on their website. Anyone interested in learning what’s new and upcoming on Netflix, including new movies and new hit shows, need not wait for that next article to circulate around social media.

Netflix has information on TV shows and movies coming to their service all the way out to 2018. While this list will almost certainly change before those dates, with even more titles added in as new licensing agreements come through, it’s a good way to measure the frequency which new content comes out for different regions. As Netflix identifies not just the date, but also the territories where each title is landing, Netflix users from anywhere can use this list to identify which regions have content they may be looking for.

You may also find value in using websites like Flixsearch or uNoGS, both of which scrape Netflix’s own data and present TV and movie libraries in a more tangible way. All of that information will get you nowhere, however, if you can’t actually connect to the different regions where that content is showing. Those who are particularly driven to catch new movies and TV shows on Netflix that they otherwise can typically turn to different VPN services like IPVanish, ExpressVPN or VIPDNSClub. In past research on Netflix’s DNS proxy and VPN blockade, we found that those services still worked at accessing regionally-locked Netflix content by proxy. We currently have in-depth reviews IPVanish and ExpressVPN as well.

Tech, video games, and a good book. I love all of them, and I'd write about all of them if I had the chance! I've been a teacher in the past, now a writer for tech-related news, guides, and information.